Wow! Our kids asked, “Can I Play?” And you responded with a resounding “Yes!”Just 4 months into our $100,000 campaign to open up 10 new Full Count programs, our scorecard shows you have helped us raise through donations and grants a total of $59,300 toward our goal of opening up 10 new Full Count summer and after school programs.

Check out our Facebook gallery below of some of the fun we had at our “Can I Play?” Gala helping to bring the life lessons inherent in the game of baseball to underserved youth!

​Stay tuned for the launch of our new website and fun, easy ways to say “Yes!” to our kids.
In the meantime, you can help us toward our goal of funding 5 more programs by donating to our Can I Play? campaign.

A BENEFITFORFRIENDSOFBASEBALL’S FULLCOUNTAFTERSCHOOLPROGRAMLast year, when we celebrated our 10th Anniversary with nearly 300 community members, we asked the group to dream with us, “If Only…”If Only our kids played on safe fields. If Only coaches were provided with the training and resources they needed. If Only families didn’t have to worry about affording that glove. If Only every child had the chance to play.On Friday, September 23, 2016 at Oregon Golf Club, we will convene again to show you what is possible when we answer, “Yes” to this question for the most underserved youth in our community.Like last year, we will have an engaging program and live auction with “can’t get anywhere else” items and bring together hundreds of business and community leaders to support the engagement of our youth through baseball– inspired educational programming. But this year, our vision is bolder. We want to launch Full Count in 10 new schools this Fall and Winter.Our youth are asking, “Can I Play?”Please answer “Yes” with us and join us at this inspirational event.Play Ball,Nova

Well as you might have noticed, it’s been too long since we have provided some updates on the website! While it is no excuse, we have been very busy in the field, literally, on the ball field! It has been a fun season for us at Friends of Baseball, including three Portland Metro area summer Full Count enrichment camps, with the second and third camps just wrapping up. We have two more ahead to round out the summer! What a blast it has been!

Jul 25–29 and Aug 1–5 at Roseway Heights for Madison Cluster –partnership with Madison High School baseball

This doesn’t include our pilot camp up in Seattle WA, in partnership with a fantastic organization called Baseball Beyond Borders, a community development organization providing developmental teams in the 16U and 18U age divisions through Inner-City schools in the Seattle area. Since it is a pilot run, it is a scaled down version of our traditional Full Count Camp, it is a one day a week camp, weekly through the month of July and into August. Important to have our programs expanding across the Pacific Northwest — but you don’t have to believe us — you can tell from the smiling faces below!

Opening Day was fun for us too! Not only did we get to celebrate it with our Partner Green Zebra grocery in North Portland kicking off the 2016 season, we also had the chance to give back to our friends at the Mariners. Specifically to a special kind of person by the name of Miles. Miles is an usher at Safeco field and has been for years, and he has made it his mission to keep the love of collecting baseball cards alive by handing out (from his own collection mind you) baseball cards to each young fan walking through his gate to Safeco field. We had the chance to replenish his stash of cards thanks to a generous gift from a local, true Friend of Baseball, Bruce Kracke. It was an honor to meet Miles and the smile on his face when we surprised him with over 10,000 cards — was priceless!

Off the field, we have also expanded our board with 2 new members (Cindy Nichol and Drew Hagedorn) who we will introduce further after they have had a chance to get their feet wet. We just conducted our yearly strategy meeting in June. Both Cindy and Drew are jumping right in to get involved from the get go! Nova and the rest of the FOB board can’t wait to utilize their skills and passion for youth baseball and softball in the NW as we continue with our Can I Play initiative!And finally the biggest reason we are in transition, we are working hard to update our website, which we are very excited about! Not only will it be more informative, but easier for you, our visitors, to help contribute to the amazing game of youth baseball in the NWthrough FOB. Please stay tuned for the big reveal…coming soon!As we continue to finalize the website, please be patient. Keep in touch with us through FaceBook and most importantly, come and see us for our Gala on September 23rd at the Oregon Golf Club (for information, email nova@friendsofbaseball.org). In the meantime, I hope this update provides a glimpse into what we are up to and a chance to say THANK YOU to everyone who has supported our efforts over the years. As we always say…#baseballbuildscommunity.Play Ball!Ben LongcorFriends of Baseball Co-Founder/President

HAPPYNEWYEARFROMFRIENDSOFBASEBALLWhen MLB Com­mis­sioner Rob Man­fred issued his let­ter around this time last year, we were so inspired and moti­vated to learn that his pri­or­i­ties for Major League Base­ball aligned so well with our pri­or­i­ties to Keep Kids on the Field of Play.He said, “Base­ball is a game firmly rooted in child­hood expe­ri­ences, and its vital­ity and growth rely heav­ily on giv­ing young peo­ple from all back­grounds the oppor­tu­nity to play and watch baseball.”​That’s why we were hon­ored to have Com­mis­sioner Man­fred par­tic­i­pate in our 10th Anniver­sary Gala from afar with his spe­cial video mes­sage and con­grat­u­la­tions not just to our Founders, but to ALLOFYOU who have been there along the way to help us help more kids.2015 HIGHLIGHTS and MORETOCOME…

In 2015, we TRIPLEDthe num­ber of schol­ar­ships we pro­vided to boys and girls to play base­ball and soft­ball across Ore­gon and SW Washington.

10 YEARSKEEPINGKIDSONTHEFIELDOFPLAYThe Seat­tle Mariners sent us a spe­cial hol­i­day thank you video mes­sage to our part­ners and sup­port­ers who have done so much for youth base­ball and soft­ball over Friends of Baseball’s decade of service.

At our Gala in Novem­ber, we raised a lit­tle over $35,000 to help fund our new Full Count pro­gram to bring more youth to the game. We are proud to part­ner with the Seat­tle Mariners to build com­mu­nity through base­ball and have their sup­port at our 10th Anniver­sary celebration.

Enjoy this spe­cial mes­sage from the Mariner Moose and his col­leagues and our front office friends, Gina Has­son and Bob Hellinger.

And remem­ber base­ball is always just around the corner.

To a fun and mem­o­rable 2016 year and season!​Your fans at Friends of Baseball

Base­ball doesn’t have to end with the post-season…​Get your Gala tick­ets today and hear from the “Keeper of the Flame” Roberto Clemente Jr.Bid on Dream Base­ball Expe­ri­ences in our Live Auc­tion including:

Seat­tle Mariners Suite for 20

MLB Stu­dio Tour and lunch with Harold Reynolds in New York

Lunch at the Mult­nomah Ath­letic Club with Major League Base­ball Umpire Jim Joyce

Pri­vate Tour of Hall of Fame in Cooperstown

2016 Chicago Cubs Week­end and tick­ets for the Giants, Pirates, Yan­kees, and more…

​Golden Tick­ets also avail­able for pur­chase to “steal home” for an auc­tion item

Din­ner includes hosted beer and wine and appe­tiz­ers for net­work­ing recep­tion and baseball-inspired per­for­mance from Michael Allen Har­ri­son and Julianne Johnson

​/full-count.htmlPro­ceeds ben­e­fit Friends of Baseball’s Full Count pro­gram which teaches life skills to boys and girls through baseball-inspired edu­ca­tional programming